Syria vote: nobody's a winner

Nobody "won" the Commons vote tonight. The killing will continue, and would have continued if the result had been different. But their have been some surprise victories.

Even a dwarf fares better on the shoulders of giants. That is Ed Miliband. Tonight, with Milliband leading the vote to head off intervention in Syria, he has joined the ranks of those whose moment in history will be remembered for some time.

Don't get me wrong, hitherto I had no impression of him. As Churchill once said; "An empty cab pulled up in Downing Street, and Clement Attlee got out of it. You might have said the same of Ed Milliband.

One other person should get the thanks for the vote against war. Tony Blair - the legacy of Iraq just keeps on giving.

As for the United States of America..

Some of us sniggered a bit when Obama was hailed as the Messiah, on his election.

The BBC's John Simpson cooed,

The United States has seen the biggest transformation in its standing in the world since the election of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in November 1960..But there are times when it (the hype) is entirely true. With Barack Obama's victory, one of these moments has arrived. As an African-American (literally, since his father was from Kenya) his background is not one of privilege and superiority. He will be open to the world in a way President Bush never was. And he will show once again the value of the American dream. In the rush to war in 2003, when many American politicians were frightened to stand out against the crowd, Barack Obama condemned the invasion loudly and publicly.
The fact that he has been elected president is his reward for that. And everyone around the world who felt that the Iraq war was wrong will feel that America has now chosen a different path - a path that leads away from extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, waterboarding and all the rest of it.

Yes, and there is a Santa Claus after all. And the BBC are just as complicit in this obscene deception as the politicians.

So all in all, perhaps we can sleep a little easier tonight, but it is of little comfort to the  many Syrians are going to suffer and die.